Sometimes doodles become designs,
sometimes they just remain doodles.
You can check out my whole crazy process below.
- Martina
Cover Art for “Mint”
Captain Martina's Journal Entry from "The Tales of King Kogi" 👑🐷
King Kogi’s airship was caught up in a large gust of warm wind. It was quite a peculiar feeling, your hair being whipped upwards and downwards, this way and that way, like a jellyfish bobbing on your head. The warmer the wind, the higher up the ship was lifted. Bobbing further up, up, and above the towering purple rain clouds, the crew was still able to breathe with ease. King Kogi protected the ship daily with various scientific spells and charms. A few crew members were pointing excitedly from the upper deck. It was a rare sight indeed: several glittering Cloudbunny nests, tucked on the top of the mint clouds. A small Cloudbunny floated over and perched on the ships’ railing closest to me. It was nearly invisible to the eye, its wispy fur blending in with the colours and textures of the pink and mint clouds behind it. The clouds below were nearly out of rain, so the airship began to descend and with that, the Cloudbunny was gone.
"She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me."
- Mr. Darcy
The original cover art that I drew for my song, “The Airship” but I decided to go with a different more whimsical design.
Captain Martina's Journal Entry from "The Tales of King Kogi" 👑🐷
King Kogi's airship bounced gently through the night sky. Watching from the balcony of his castle, the clouds around him were piled up high in soft fluffy mounds of pastel pink and blue. Soundlessly, the ship drifted through the middle of a large cloud. The air around him turned hazy and pink. Tiny beads of moisture began to form on the railings and on the deck of the ship below. The patch of grass outside his castle was covered in dew drops. As the strange airship emerged from the cloud, the moon became clear in the night sky once again. The droplets caught the light and for a moment, tiny rainbow dots sparkled and glittered all over the ship. King Kogi smiled at the beautiful sight before him. Lapan was truly a beautiful and magical land. The airship picked up speed and the tiny droplets disappeared in the breeze.
Cover Art for the song, “The Airship” you can listen to it on my SoundCloud account
King Kogi’s Coronation
It took over 25 bizarre layers to create this 3D- but-not all-quite-3D pop-art comic Kogi. The effect was quite neat and I wanted to see how it would work as a shirt print.
Strawberry Milk Cream
This was one of those projects that starts out small and explodes into a whole thing. I just wanted to work on my typography both in English and Japanese. I ended up using seven different styles but they all have little personal touches. Also, I just LOOVVE designing food labels and food cartons. This project ended up having…so many layers…over 40.
Strawberry and Stars
I wanted to create my own fruit pattern and after several attempts this more delicate strawberry with tiny dots and swirls was the winner.
“Build A Ladder”
The Japanese Edition
This is “Build A Ladder" translated into Japanese and written in hiragana. I went pretty crazy trying to create a more interesting Japanese font.
The literal translation ends up as “make” a ladder.
“Procreate Gallery Snapshot”
A screenshot of my Procreate gallery.
These are some of the projects I have in the works.
“Kichijoji’s Triangle of Awesome”
(The Triangle is: Harmonica Alley, Studio Ghibli Museum, Inokashira Park)
I wanted to use this design to rep the awesome city of Kichijoji,
but was a little bit worried Stuido Ghibli might sue me..hahahaha!
Although this LOOKS like a certain Totoro we all know, I’ve made some changes on his tummy, his whiskers, and with the colours.
Always Fresh. Sakura Bomb
I made this design on a long haul, non-stop flight between Toronto and Tokyo. I literally used Kogi as the perfect cushion for elevating my iPad while I doodled away. I enjoy blending different types of handwritten styles.
I don’t always like typography that is TOO perfect (maybe that’s my excuse for my messy writing haha) because it can feel like it was printed via a computer, rather than made by a human. Not to say there isn’t a time I don’t love that perfection; label designs with crisp typography and bold lines is amazing.